After Horizon
by MatthiasShepard
Summary: A miracle: Commander Shepard lives to fight once more. A second miracle: she manages to prevent the Collectors from abducting the entirety of a human colony out in the Terminus Systems. A third miracle: one of those she saved is one whom she had loved, in a past life. But the reunion is not as pleasant as she would have hoped. This short story follows the events of that meeting.


Her face had remained cool and expressionless as he let his thoughts be known. She remained collected, even though his words had stung her. They had only seared deeper with each passing second since they had left that god-forsaken planet.

She had been dead for more than two years and was working alongside the people who had brought her back to life. Somehow, this was not an adequate explanation for one Kaidan Alenko.

The pent-up emotion within her was so palpable that it stifled all conversation in the shuttle ride back to the _Normandy_. The normally-garrulous Garrus and Jacob sat uncomfortably still, put in the awkward position of being in the company of their fearless leader- the Hero of the Citadel- as she was at her most vulnerable. Zaeed crossed his arms and relaxed, as if the horrors they had witnessed on the mission could not possibly top one of his memories, seemingly oblivious of the reunion that took place and its aftermath. Miranda steered the shuttle, her face fixed on the instruments, focused on precision and accuracy with her piloting. Kasumi sat cross-legged on the deck, debating internally whether she should say something to break the silence, or to cloak and hope that no one noticed. Mordin fidgeted, having already processed the emotional trauma of the mission, mind already ablaze with new experiments to run on the samples they had collected.

Shepard was only remotely aware that she was not conducting her usual morale-boosting debriefs. Instead, she rested her elbows on her knees, one hand nested in the other under her chin, her eyes fixated on a point far past the bolt in the floor she was actually staring at. A small bump of turbulence, and she let her head down, resting her forehead against her hands.

That same lack of expression prevailed as the shuttle docked on board. She was the first to disembark, moving at a brisk pace to ensure she was alone in the elevator. As she took the lift to the top deck, her personal cabin, the wall finally cracked. A tear formed in her eye, hot and mocking as it leaked down her cheek. She shook her head, brushing a still-gloved hand across her face as the other balled into a fist and slammed into the wall of the elevator. When she finally reached her cabin, her teeth were gritting, her lips trembling, her shoulders heaving in barely-controlled sobs. She tore at the straps of her armor, slinging the pieces in random directions. Her ears barely registered a pair of _crack_ing noises as her arms became freed of their braces, her breastplate, greaves and boots soon to be strewn about the floor. Still dressed in the under-armor casual shirt and pants, she allowed her body to fall onto the bed, her arms sprawled to the sides, her breaths coming in tearing, choking sobs.

She had no way of telling how long she stayed that way, but she did know that it was long enough to have run out of tears. Though her body was racked with the fiery emotions she still felt, she could not cry. Her muscles ached from repeatedly tensing them, and she found herself completely unwilling to move from the bed. For her, that was perfectly fine; the Reapers could come and take her. What would she care?

It's not like she wanted to go on with the show, anyway.

The lift door opened, and her breath caught in her throat as a _rat-tat-tat_ sounded at the interior door. She said nothing, eyes fearful, in the hopes that the visitor would simply go away. When the door opened, instead, she quickly found the strength to roll over and sit up on the edge of the bed, the heels of her hand quickly trying to wipe the tear-stained cheeks and sink the red, swollen eyes back into her head. She tried for all the world to act as if nothing were out of the ordinary and addressed her visitor with genuine surprise mixed into her act.

"Garrus!" she said, her voice only cracking on the last sound of his name. "I'm surprised to see you… what can I do for you?"

He shuffled as carefully as his talons would let him, the soft clinking noises on the deck seeming to echo in the small room. His subharmonics rumbled as he responded: "Shepard… you and I both know what this is about. Are you okay?"

She shook her head and looked away, not allowing herself to look into his eyes, lest she begin anew. "I don't know what you're talking about, Garrus. I'm fine."

He sat down on the coffee table across from her, folding his hands together, his forearms resting on his knees as he shook his head, looking down at the floor. "When we left Noveria, Virmire, and Ilos, you were fine. When you were done talking to _Sovereign_, you were fine." He paused and lifted his gaze, momentarily locking eyes with her. "You… are not fine."

She swatted away the words, finding the strength to stand, taking a few steps toward the stairs that led to the office space in her cabin. "Trust me, I know what you're trying to do, and-"

"_Look_." His exclamation was pointed, and she stopped in her tracks, halfway up the stairs. He had stood up, leaned towards her, a hand pointing towards her back. "I know that look. I wore it when I stormed back into my own base on Omega and found most of my crew dead. When I-"

"Lay _off_, Garrus! You have no _idea_ what I am going through, right now." She rounded on him with gritted teeth, eyes hot with fresh tears, voice shaking with rage. "You couldn't understand what he and I had. I _loved_ him. And _he loved me_. And he _doesn't believe me_." She sat down on the middle stair as her cheeks flushed with embarrassment. She let her head fall into her hands once more, as much to hide her face from Garrus as needing the comfort of a warm touch, even her own. "He... doesn't love me, anymore," She whispered.

His mandibles flared in shock, his body rooted to the deck. Not once in all his service under her command had she yelled at him in that way. After an unendurably long silence, broken only by her shuddering breath, he turned and walked toward the staircase. He felt the need to comfort her, to say something, but words would not come; what could be said? What words would make this more palatable? What could be shared that would relieve the pain? He did not know. So he continued past her, toward the lift.

As the door to the lift closed, he finally finished his broken thought in a soft, quaking, harmonic. "I wore that look... when I learned you were dead."

When the door seals re-engaged, she hugged her knees close to her chest, her head resting on her knees.

Not far away, the model of the _Normandy SR-1_, knocked out of its pegs by an errant glove, lay snapped through the middle of a portrait that had been sitting on the desk. A distorted image of a Lieutenant Commander blurred as the holographic display tried to realign itself.

The _Normandy_ sailed off into the all-enveloping cosmic black.


End file.
